FirstCry plans to increase its store count from 150 to 700

With expansion in mind, Firstcry.com, aims at increasing their retail outlets PAN India.

Indian Retailer Bureau

Running high on its expansion spree, kids & baby care products retailer, Firstcry.com, now plans to increase its retail outlets from 150 to 700 in the coming 3-4 years.
Commenting on the same, Supam Maheshwari, CEO, FirstCry.com said, “We already have 150 stores in 85 cities and will be adding another 100 stores this year. These would be both, additional stores in cities where we are already present, as well as new stores in Tier III and Tier IV towns.”
Though the trend of buying online is increasing exponentially, tradition offline retail still remains the most preferred option for a large chunk of people. Following this trend, the company is also planning to add 200 global brands to its portfolio by the end of this year. It will also push its Babyhug brand overseas.
“We currently have about 17,000 products in the Babyhug range and will continue to add more to add depth to the different categories,” said Maheshwari.
Firstcry initially started reaching out to its potential customer via the eCommerce route and has recently revamped its loyalty programme in a way that customers could earn points on both online and offline (in-store) purchases and redeem them on either platform.
"We will continue to scale up this programme and double the number of hospitals we reach, from 7000 at present, over the next two years - or go from 100,000 moms a month to 200,000 moms a month," said Maheshwari.
He added that he expected the business to grow at a minimum of 100 per cent year-on-year for the next two years.
In 2015, the company raised $36 million from New Enterprise Associates, Valiant Capital, IDG Ventures India, Ventex Venture Holdings and SAIF Partners. The overall baby care market in India is around $12 billion of which less than 5% is estimated to be online.